As is well known and understood, many refrigerator/freezers sold today are equipped with an automatic ice cube maker to supply ice cubes on demand through an opening which is readily accessible through a compartment located on the outside of the freezer door. Such compartment--typically of dimensions of approximately 8" high by 11" wide by 41/2" deep--is generally located on the external side of the freezer door which opens into the room. At the top of the recessed compartment is an opening which is functionally connected to the storage bin of the ice making unit located within the freezer itself. As generally designed, near the rear of the compartment, directly under such opening, is a button or lever which, when depressed, activates the ice maker to dispense ice cubes through the opening of the compartment, directed to fall into a vessel placed directly below the opening. Such button or lever is actuated as the vessel which is to receive the ice cubes is put in contact with it, and pushed. In such manner, a person is able to load ice cubes into a glass tumbler without opening the freezer door, and prevents warm air from entering the freezer compartment--and unnecessarily wasting energy.
Because the compartment located in the freezer door is of a size generally intended for use with a glass tumbler, problems arise when trying to fill a vessel of a height usually more than 8 inches. A person wishing to add ice cubes to a larger vessel (such as an ice bucket or a small ice chest) then, is generally unable to do this directly from the compartment as such larger vessel will not fit into the compartment beneath the opening, and will not be able to actuate the operating button or lever. Such a person wishing to add ice cubes to this type of larger vessel would have to open the freezer door for access to the ice storage bin, and either scoop ice cubes from the bin by hand into the ice bucket, ice chest, etc.--or remove the storage bin entirely from the freezer and dump its ice cubes directly into the vessel. Not only does this require opening the freezer door (and allowing warm air into the freezer to waste energy and deleteriously affect its operation) but frequently leads to dropping the ice cubes on the floor when trying to scoop them out of the bin by hand.